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Friday, March 1 W e are in brigade station number 165 and I am in Company 42, of the 11th Battalion, the 180th Brigade, and the 90th Division. Two corporals, a sergeant, a second lieutenant, a first lieutenant, and a captain are responsible for our military review. I know Sergeant Rankin. He is a good person—gracious, friendly, and a long-standing member of the military, although he is still very young. The second lieutenant is of medium height. I still do not know his name, but he is very young and shows how well educated he is by the respectful way he treats us. The captain is named Johnson. You could not find a better person. I can now appreciate the chance occurrence I had in the kitchen, or mess hall, this morning. Someone called us to “attention” while we ate breakfast, and the officer of the day asked if anyone knew how to type. No one responded , either because they did not know how or just did not wish to reply. When he asked for the third time, two raised their hands and then I followed. They asked us to fill out insurance forms for the recruits. We were also to calculate the pay amounts the government would assign each family and the total that we were to set aside for them. We had to do this for all the soldiers in our company. This helped me understand how to prepare my own documents and to make sure that I receive all the benefits guaranteed to soldiers who faithfully meet their duty. The thousands of questions we asked the soldiers and the different cases I reviewed were enough for me to understand everything well and to fill out my forms properly. I realize that many poor fellows were not prepared to report what most benefited them. Saturday, March 2 Two more Mexican buddies are with me now. I took care of their papers, the same as mine. They do not know the language well enough to fend for The Brigade Station 48 49 The Brigade Station themselves, although they will be as good as the rest of the soldiers in other matters. One of them, Simón González, comes from Seguín, but he is from Martindale. He is young and from a very humble family. Simón is so uninformed that he understands little about what he is to do now. He is far, very far from knowing that as poor as he is, he is destined to fight until the end so that our people can hold our name high. Simón has a brother who is also in the military, and he leaves his elderly father, seventy years old and blind, all alone in Martindale. José Leal is another of my buddies who shares our barracks. He is the type of Mexican who knows how to endure everything. José gives himself completely to the challenges of life. He is the personification of our people’s well-known stoicism! José also lacks an education, but he is intelligent and his resolute disposition makes him appear indifferent to whatever destiny has in store for him. He leaves behind parents and siblings and a faithful girlfriend to whom he writes often and dedicates his time in the war. His family is from Seguín. Simón and José knew each other. After I made sure they understood we are playing the last card in the game of life, I convinced José and Simón to leave their families all they will earn. I only keep three dollars from my monthly pay, an amount that is more than enough to keep me from being a burden on anyone. This will allow us to focus on what we have to do and to do it well. Our sacrifice is like the one made by Hernán Cortéz when he burned his ships at Veracruz.1 We continue under strict quarantine but went out for the first time this afternoon. We marched to the hospital for another physical examination. We were vaccinated and immunized. The shot was for typhoid. Several soldiers fainted as they were inoculated or when they saw that they were about to be vaccinated. Nerves fail men who think they are strong. We will remember the amusing scenes and difficulties during the horrible examination. We suffered that night from the pain of the inoculations. Sunday, March 3 Our routine did not change although we were sore...

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